True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office. Arthur Cheney Train
paper, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Parker, "but Jim didn't write those checks. I wrote them myself. If you want to go in with me, we can earn enough money to get Jim out and you can do a good turn for yourself besides."
The detective's blood leaped in his veins but he held himself under control as well as he could and answered indifferently.
"I guess not. I never met a woman that was very good at that sort of game."
"Oh, you don't know me," she persisted. "Why, I can copy anything in a few moments—really I can."
"Too dangerous," remarked Peabody. "I might get settled for ten years."
"No, you wouldn't," she continued. "It's the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is to pick the mail out of some box on a corner. I can show you how with a copper wire and a little piece of wax—and you are sure to find among the letters somebody's check in payment of a bill. There at once you have the bank, and the signature. Then all you have to do is to write a letter to the bank asking for a new check book, saying yours is used up, and sign the name that appears on the check. If you can fool the cashier into giving your messenger a check book you can gamble pretty safely on his paying a check signed with the same name. In that way, you see, you can get all the blank checks you need and test the cashier's watchfulness at the same time. It's too easy. The only thing you have to look out for is not to overdraw the account. Still, you find so many checks in the mail that you can usually choose somebody's account that will stand the strain. Do you know, I have made hundreds of checks and the banks have certified every single one!"
Peabody laughed good naturedly. Things were looking up a bit.
"What do you think I am, anyhow?" he asked. "I must look like a 'come-on.'"
"I'm giving it to you straight," she said simply. "After you have made out a good fat check, then you go to a store, buy something, tell them to forward the check to the bank for certification, and that you'll send for the goods and the change the next day. The bank always certifies the check, and you get the money."
"Not always," said Peabody with a grin.
"No, not always," acquiesced Mrs. Parker. "But Jim and I have been averaging over a hundred dollars a day for months."
"Good graft, all right," assented the detective. "But how does the one who lays down the check identify himself? For instance, suppose I go into Tiffany's and pick out a diamond, and say I'm Mr. John Smith, of 100 West One Hundredth Street, and the floorwalker says, 'Sorry, Mr. Smith, but we don't know you,' what then?"
"Just flash a few letters on him," said the girl. "Letters and envelopes."
"Where do you get 'em?" asked Peabody.
"Just write them, silly, and send them to yourself through the mail."
"That's all right," retorted the "second story man." "But how can I mail myself a letter to 100 West One Hundredth Street when I don't live there?"
Mrs. Parker smiled in a superior manner.
"I'm glad I can put you wise to a new game, I invented it myself. You want letters of identification? In different names and addresses on different days? Very good. Buy a bundle of stamped envelopes and write your own name and address on them in pencil. When they arrive rub off the pencil address. Then if you want to be John Smith of 100 West One Hundredth Street, or anybody else, just address the cancelled envelope in ink."
"Mabel," said Peabody with admiration, "you've got the 'gray matter' all right. You can have me, if you can deliver the rest of the goods."
FIG.3.—A letter-head frill of Mabel Parker's.
"There's still another little frill," she continued, pleased at his compliment, "if you want to do the thing in style. Maybe you will find a letter or bill head in the mail at the same time that you get your sample check. If you do, you can have it copied and write your request for the check book and your order for the goods on paper printed exactly like it. That gives a sort of final touch, you know. I remember we did that with a dentist named Budd, at 137 West Twenty-second Street." (Fig. 3.)
"You've got all the rest whipped to a standstill," cried Peabody.
"Well, just come over to the room and I'll show you something worth while," exclaimed the girl, getting up and paying their bill.
"Now," said she, when they were safely at no West Thirty-eighth Street, and she had closed the door of the room and drawn Peabody to a desk in the bay window. "Here's my regular handwriting."
She pulled towards her a pad which lay open upon the desk and wrote in a fair, round hand:
"Mrs. James D. Singley." (Fig. 4.)
"This," she continued, changing her slant and dashing off a queer feminine scrawl, "is the signature we fooled the Lincoln National Bank with—Miss Kauser's, you know. And this," she added a moment later, adopting a stiff, shaky, hump-backed orthography, "is the signature that got poor Jim into all this trouble," and she inscribed twice upon the paper the name "E. Bierstadt." "Poor Jim!" she added to herself.
"By George, Mabel," remarked the detective, "you're a wonder! See if you can copy my name." And Peabody wrote the assumed name of William Hickey, first with a stub and then with a fine point, both of which signatures she copied like a flash, in each case, however, being guilty of the lapse of spelling the word William "Willian."
The pad now contained more than enough evidence to convict twenty women, and Peabody, with the remark, "You don't want to leave this kind of thing lying around, Mabel," pretended to tear the page up, but substituted a blank sheet in its place and smuggled the precious bit of paper into his pocket.
"Yes, I'll go into business with you—sure I will!" said Peabody.
"And we'll get enough money to set Jim free!" exclaimed the girl.
They were now fast friends, and it was agreed that "Hickey" should go and make himself presentable, after which they would dine at some restaurant and then sample a convenient mail box. Meantime Peabody telephoned to Headquarters, and when the two set out for dinner at six o'clock the supposed "Hickey" was stopped on Broadway by Detective Sergeant Clark.
"What are you doing here in New York?" demanded Clark. "Didn't I give you six hours to fly the coop? And who's this woman?"
Fig. 4—The upper signature is an example of Mabel Parker's regular penmanship; the next two are forgeries from memory; and the last is a dashing imitation of her companion's handwriting.
"I was going, Clark, honest I was," whined "Hickey," "and this lady's all right—she hasn't done a thing."
"Well, I guess I'll have to lock you up at Headquarters for the night," said Clark roughly. "The girl can go."
"Oh, Mr. Clark, do come and have dinner with us first!" exclaimed Mrs. Parker. "Mr. Hickey has been very good to me, and he hasn't had anything to eat for ever so long."
"Don't care if I do," said Clark. "I guess I can put up with the company if the board is good."
The three entered the Raleigh Hotel and ordered a substantial meal. With the arrival of dessert, however, the girl became uneasy, and apparently fearing arrest herself, slipped a roll of bills under the table to "Hickey" and whispered to him to keep it for her. The detective, thinking that the farce had gone far enough, threw the money on the table and asked Clark to count it, at the same tune telling Mrs. Parker that she was in custody. The girl turned white, uttered a little scream, and then, regaining her self-possession,